About Me

I was a reporter and columnist for 40 years for a chain of newspapers in the suburbs of Chicago. I'm a military veteran having served in the United States Army Combat Engineers (Cpl. E-4) and a Korean War veteran with an Honorable Discharge from the Armed Forces of the United States of America

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

This graphic video captures up close an attack by U.S. soldiers in Iraq on insurgents. Warning: Some of the footage is VERY GRAPHIC.Watch video here: http://www.youtube.com/v/rnjD0REckn0&hl=en&fs=1Click on diamond-shaped arrow in picture to activate video

Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern, two of the most respected analysts and journalists in the United States, talk about how foreign nations will look at GOP veep pick Sarah Palin and GOP presidenital choice John McCain on the IRAQ WAR. This compelling video is well worth the time to watch as these two foreign policy experts discuss Sarah Palin and John McCain.Ray McGovern dissects what John McCain's goal were regarding IRAQ and how McCain ignored evidence which indicated IRAQ did not have weapons of mass destruction. Scott Ritter is a former weapons inspector and he talks about what the Bush administrtion knew about IRAQ's "weapons" program and how they misled the American public into war with Iraq.Watch video here: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2193

John McCain likes to boast to the press about how the "war has been won" in Iraq, however McCain apparently doesn't know about the following list of 23 U.S. soldiers and Marines who have died in IRAQ in August alone.The list contains names, hometowns and cause of death and you can click on each name to obtain further information on each soldier or Marine who have been KILLED in IRAQ during the month of August.Source: http://icasualties.org/oif/prdDetails.aspx?hndRef=4-2008

Date
Total
Name
Place of Death - Province
Cause of Death
28-Aug-2008
2
US: 2 UK: 0 Other: 0

GOP Presidential candidate John McCain has gone on record saying "we have won the war in Iraq."Apparently McCain's campaign staff don't allow him to see reports like the following of events in Iraq Tuesday.Baghdad- Seven people were killed in a car bombing in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul city Tuesday, while in Baghdad twin bomb attacks left four dead. http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/229293,11-killed-in-mosul-and-baghdad-violence--summary.htmlIn Mosul, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden vehicle near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the eastern al-Quds neighbourhood, killing seven people and wounding seven.Despite having a significant Kurdish population, the city does not constitute part of the area controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government.In Baghdad twin attacks that targeted police patrols left four people dead and 14 injured, the Voice of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

One attack took place in al-Harithiya neighborhood, western Baghdad, when a bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol vehicle. Two were killed and six wounded.

Earlier, in central Baghdad, a policeman and a civilian were killed and eight civilians were injured in a blast near Kendi Hospital.

In Kirkuk, the city's deputy governor survived an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb went off near the Baghdad bus station targeting Kirkuk's deputy governor Rakan Said, an official told VOI.

Rifts over the status of the multi-ethnic city, with a population of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, have resulted in lawmakers failing to pass legislation on provincial elections.

Kurds, claiming a majority of the city's population, currently hold more than half the seats in the Kirkuk council. Arabs and Turkmen oppose any integration of the city into autonomous Kurdistan.

The media in the United States would leave people to believe it was the United States military which accomplished the turnover of Anbar Province to the Iraqi Security forces.Nothing could be further from the TRUTH.To begin with, the U.S. Army didn't kill or capture any insurgents. The Sunni Awakening banded together to rid Anbar Province of the insurgents.The U.S. military just stood guard while the cleansing took place. You can be sure if the U.S. military were involved there would have been screaming headlines about how many Iraqi insurgents the U.S. military killed or captured, but that was not the case.The signing ceremony was all a photo-op aimed at making it look like the U.S. military had accomplished some major military victory in Anbar Province. The future of Anbar Province is shaky at best and it is far too early to tell if the insurgents have been run out of Anbar, or are they just in hiding planning their next attack.Commentary by BILL CORCORAN, editor of CORKSPHEREUncertainty After Anbar HandoverFate of U.S.-Backed Sunni Fighters Precarious as Government Targets Force's Leaders

BAGHDAD, Sept. 1 -- The U.S. military on Monday handed the Iraqi government control of security in Anbar province, the former Sunni insurgency stronghold that is now one of the safest areas in the country.

President Bush and military officials hailed the transfer as a sign of the growing strength of the Iraqi security forces. The United States plans to draw down the 26,000 American troops in Anbar so it can deploy more to Afghanistan, where violence is cresting as security improves in Iraq.

But as Iraqis celebrated the milestone, uncertainty lingered about the future of a linchpin in the effort to secure Anbar and the rest of Iraq: the Awakening movement, a 100,000-person group of former Sunni insurgents who now cooperate with U.S. troops.

The Shiite-led government has recently stepped up a campaign to arrest leaders of the Awakening and dismantle parts of the program, whose members receive $300 a month from the U.S. military. Many fighters have abandoned their posts and fled their homes to avoid detention, stoking fears that some will rejoin the insurgency.